It's the initial prospecting, exploration, and the...

It's the initial prospecting, exploration, and the development/construction of a hard rock project/mine that's typically more capital intensive than that of a brine deposit.
Either way however it still takes years to go from exploration to initial production.

Fortunately for GMM the expenditure and time of proving up an economically viable project here, have already been spent.
There are other companies that will not be in such a privileged position with Investors being typically put off by large scale projects that are long winded and capital intensive.

For GMM this project is now ready to mine Q1 2016 having completed all of its initial large capex outlay.
The company is now focused on Mining and production in the near term.

From a cost perspective GMM is positioned extremely well imo and any credible offtakes now coming to the table will reinforce the projects viability, economics and its sure foot into the Supply chains and Growth markets.